Cold covered - Hot blooded
by Skycatcher
Summary: Beast Boy is acting strange and Raven tries to get to the bottom of his weird behaviour. What troubles the young man so much, that he even refrains from playing video games? And what will Raven do when she is faced with unexpected emotions? Multiple chapters planned. BB/Rae, Rob/Star and maybe we will find someone for Cyborg on the way ;) (Takes place after Trouble in Tokyo)


A/N: This is my very first attempt at writing Fan Fiction. I would love it, if you'd find the time to write me a proper critique, but of course I am happy about all kinds of feedback :)  
Also note that English is not my mother tongue, so please forgive me my inevitable grammar mistakes. (I hope my spellchecker got rid of the spelling mistakes, though.)

Disclaimer: I own nothing but a cup of tea and a head full of Fiction.

* * *

It was November and although snow was a very rare occasion in Jump City, the town was covered in a light blanket of white.  
This time of year, most people liked to stay in their homes. Luckily for the young heroes protecting this city, so did the criminals.  
The crime rate had dropped radically over the last few weeks, leaving the Teen Titans painfully unoccupied.

The members had soon started engaging in different activities:  
Starfire had been hanging out in the kitchen, reading a dozen cookbooks and trying out the recipes. And although she had made some progress in actually producing eatable meals, those were still a rare occasion.  
But since even Beast Boy and Cyborg had gotten tired of surviving of Pizza and Ice-Cream, the Titans encouraged her decision to pick up cooking as a hobby.

Cyborg was mostly working on the T-Ship, his beloved car or the tower itself. The last few crime based occurrences had wrecked the place up pretty good and a few additional updates could never hurt.

Robin used his recently found free time cataloguing various villains and searching for connections between them. He also was the only Titan not to slack off in training exercises; one of the rare occasions at which he left his room for other reasons than hunger or thirst.

Raven mostly kept her daily routine of meditating and reading various books. She welcomed this silent time of year, when she could really dive into the stories she read without being interrupted every few minutes by the alarm, Starfires attempts to establish a girlish friendship with her, or Beast Boy and his immature pranks and jokes.  
In fact she hadn't seen Beast Boy at all the last few days. And even before that, he would just briefly turn up to grab something to eat; he would not even stop to answer Cyborg, who tried to get the reason for this strange behaviour out of him.

Raven closed the book she had been reading and laid it down on the bed beside her.  
The thought of the depressed green youngster just did not let her go...  
Maybe, if her book about ancient witchcraft in the Middle East had been as interesting as expected, or if Terra hadn't made an appearance last spring, or maybe if her more recent voyage into her own mind had not brought her a lot closer to understanding human emotions... Maybe if all that had not happened, she would not care about her teammate that much.

She stood up, sighed heavily and made her way out of her bedroom.  
As her door slid open it revealed the lean figure of exactly the man Raven had thought about moments before.

Beast Boy had his right hand raised and loosely closed into a fist, ready to knock on the now open door.  
Mild surprise was written in his face; Apparently the two heroes had decided to seek the other's company at the exact same moment.  
Raven was taken aback. She had hoped to have some more time to think about the upcoming talk.  
Beast Boy lowered his hand and sheepishly smiled at her out of the corner of his mouth.  
Raven noticed that this was only a sad attempt at his usual happy attitude, the smile did not reach his eyes.

Something seemed to seriously trouble the young man.

"Uh, hey..", he said, "I was just.. I thought.." His voice trailed off. He looked to the side, avoiding her eyes, his jaw clenched. The smile was gone.  
"You wanted to talk to me...?" Raven stated the obvious. This shy behaviour of his was too unusual, upsetting even.  
"Yes.", he answered. Then, after a long pause, "Can I.. Come in?"

Silently she stepped aside. The young man took a few steps into the room and then just stood there, seemingly undecided whether he was allowed to go further or not. The door shut as Raven turned to Beast Boy who looked around the dark room.

Although it was not even five o'clock, the only sufficient light came from about a dozen candles, spread across the black carpeted floor. Books were scattered in between, most of them opened to certain pages.  
The sky outside of the tall windows that formed an entire wall of the room was heavily clouded. It seemed to be snowing again.

Raven took a few steps towards Beast Boy, then hesitantly changing her destination, she sat down on her bed and patted on the place beside her as she raised her eyebrows, signaling him to take a seat next to her.  
The young man actually managed a sad smile as he began to move towards her bed.  
She noticed that he was still avoiding her eyes.

As Beast Boy sat down, pushing away the book Raven had been reading before, he sighed heavily and leaned forward, covering his face in his hands. His elbows rested on his knees.  
Raven had hoped that sitting down would have calmed him down, cleared his mind, and given her time to think about the right things to reply when he would eventually start talking.

But the longer he sat there, ruffling his hair, the more upset he seemed to get.

After a few endless minutes, she decided it was her turn to try and start a conversation.  
She took a deep breath.  
"You seem upset."  
A slight understatement. 'Upset' was when he lost in a video game against Cyborg or Robin again; But even then he fooled around and only jokingly got angry or pouted.  
This was a serious kind of upset.

"That obvious?", he replied, his hands fully concealed by his hands.  
She was not sure whether that question had a sarcastic tone to it or not.

"Quite. I believe you came here to.. talk about this?" Raven now also leaned forward and tried to face the young man. If she was forced to have this talk with him, she would do it properly. At least as proper as she could manage.

Finally, he lowered his hands and began to speak.


End file.
